22 Magical Teas, and the Plants from Which they're Made

The following is a list of 22 strange plants used for brewing magical teas. Each entry describes where this plant can be found or how it can be cultivated. Each accompanying image is AI-generated by Wombo's Dream AI.

This was written for Stick for the Spring 2022 Secret Jackalope blogpost exchange. My apologies for the delay.

1. Bartered Tea Tea made from the Il Plagato plant promotes a calm mind and enhances physical dexterity, but only if the leaves are willingly given to the harvester. Stolen leaves are bitter and have a diuretic effect. Such plants are typically willing to part with some leaves in exchange for entertainment, and are known to be especially fond of juggling.

Wizards in Rayon Stockings: Some worldbuilding notes on plastics.

How reasonable is it is include plastics in a psuedo-medieval fantasy world without fossil fuels? 

 

A better title might be "Alchemists in Rayon", because of course you can just wave your witchofingers and summon tupperware from the realms of chaos. But even restricting ourselves to low-magic fantasy, for many plastics, it's totally reasonable to throw them in. They'll probably just be rarer and considered high-quality objects instead of throwaway trash.

Clearly, the question on everyone's mind when they see this compilation of public domain witches is
"Where did they get those sweet leggings?"

Skip to the end if you just want a bulleted list of which plastics I thinks a witch might be able to brew in a cauldron. But otherwise, come with me on this scatterbrained journey into the world of organic chemistry.

 

A handful of random tables about magical whatzits

d6x6 Random Mundane Materials

	1	2	3	4	5	6
1	Dirt	Tin	Stone	Ethanol	Chitin	Hair
2	Silk	Copper	Sand	Soap	Rope	Skin
3	Water	Silver	Diamond	Nacre	Pykrete	Bone
4	Grass	Gold	Glass	Grease	Graphite	Giblets
5	Shellac	Iron	Rust	Treacle	Cement	Blood
6	Mold	Lead	Mud	Honey	Rubber	Meat

d20 Random Magical Materials with Impossible Properties

1. Dirt
2. Skywood: Dense, hard wood which resists the pull of gravity. Grows as trees which float through the air, carrying along clumps of earth tangled in their roots. Wicker panels of the stuff are used to craft flying ships.
3. Adamant Glass: Cloudy gray glass, impossible to sully or scratch. Impervious and impenetrable to all forms of chemical or magic, meaning it can be used to entrap ghosts, spells, and other spirits. Really easy to melt, though, and can shatter violently.
4. Vermillion Ichor: Like red-tinged quicksilver. Constantly jitters in place. Imbues anything it’s placed into with elan vital, compelling it into motion and imbuing it with will.
5. Magnets
6. Shimmersilk: Lightweight fluttering cloth of indeterminate form. Appearance changes based on the viewers’ expecations
7. Alkahest: Universal perfect solvent, seperates things into their constituent components without otherwise damaging or changing them.
8. Tomberstone: Stone which hates the heavens. Dark violet with streaks of iridescent yellow. When directly under an open sky, it pushes downwards with immense force. When covered, behaves like normal stone.
9. Chornolyst: Magical kudzu. Thick sticky pitch-black sheets which grow rapidly over surfaces in the presence of mana and bright light. Rapidly dies and rots in their absence. Tough but flexible. Highly flammable. Technically edible.
10. True Vitriol: Green-Red crystal with a greasy lustre. Eternally burns with an unquenchable putrid flame. Powerful heat, but irritating headache-causing flickering light.
11. Ectoplasm: A versatile stringy substance that can be regurgitated by skilled experts. A sort of physical manifestation of the soul which responds to the emitter’s will. Is capable of fine manipulation and interaction with a wide variety of magical phenomena. The main drawback is that any damage to the substance has drastic psychic health consequences for the person who squeezed it out.
12. Philosopher’s stone: Turns mercury into silver on contact, lead into gold, reverses aging, frags trolls, etc.
13. Slarmbe: Insulates from time. Kind of a salty amber-tinted jelly. Kind of just a zone of shimmering air. Kind of makes you go cross-eyed to look at it. The thicker it covers an object, the more slowly that thing advances through time. Can be arduously moved by prodding it with a long stick.
14. Solidified Nimbus: Like the cartoon version of a cloud. Soft and moldable. Cold to the touch. Drips water out of the bottom when squeezed. Accumulates static electricity.
15. Null: Absorbs energy practically without bound. Unworkable and immovable in its pure form. Can be dissolved and alloyed to produce immovable rods and similar wonders.
16. Impressionable Flesh: Raw animal matter in its most magically pure state. Often mistaken for a species of pale grey ooze. Assimilates small bits of detritus and small clumps of organic matter. When it comes into contact with a larger body of living flesh, it merges into and assumes the form of that flesh. Potent for healing, and can even restore lost limbs. Contraindicated for head and spinal injuries, under penalty of execution.
17. Demoncore: Densely malevolent metal, brimming with alchemical power. Capable of poisoning those who merely stand near it, or providing a near limitless source of arcane energy.
18. Voidmetal: Sticks to shadows and vice versa
19. Pureglass: Perfectly invisible stone.
20. Song-glass: Frost that dissolves into radio static whispers divine secrets.

Table of Random, and Likely Horrendous, Fluids.